TAX PRACTICE

Four Ways to Identify Candidates for Cross-Selling

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https://cpatrendlines.com/2016/06/11/adopt-a-marketing-mindset/

Adopt a marketing mindset.

By Ed Mendlowitz

The average tax return client thinks of accountants as being mainly involved in taxes. Also, an accounting firm’s largest volume of clients is usually for tax return services. Therefore, a good part of the public image of your firm must come from the tax department.

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The tax department must be involved in:

  • strengthening the firm’s brand and name recognition,
  • getting publicity and
  • introducing tax return clients to additional services.

Unfortunately, many accounting firms provide very little guidance or training in this area.

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 Busy Season 2026: Clients, Pricing, Staffing… CRUNCH

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CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer: Modest Gains, Mixed Outlook, Cautious Tech Upgrades Ahead

Top concerns: “The returns aren’t harder—they’re just later.” (CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer)
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By CPA Trendlines Research

The 2026 tax season shows some gradual improvement for certain firms, but most practitioners report conditions that remain largely unchanged from a year ago, according to the latest data from the CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer.

For More Busy Season Trends and Strategies: Join the survey. Get the results.

MORE Tax Season 2026

The good news is: 2026 hasn’t turned into the disaster some were expecting with a new tax law and diminished IRS. The bad news is: 2026 is turning into a relatively routine year — without the advances in workflow or the better margins from higher-value services that some were hoping for.

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Inside Tax Season’s Hidden Shift: Same Work, Fewer People, Higher Cost

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And that’s the good news.

Your mileage may vary: The tax and accounting workforce is churning out almost as many returns. But with rising labor costs. Is that a margin squeeze or the firm of the future? (Index = pro-filed tax returns, annualized payrolls, and headcounts)

By CPA Trendlines

New CPA Trendlines Research suggests that the much vaunted promises of AI-enabled efficiencies are still just that – promises.

MORE Tax Season

So far this year, firms are producing even fewer tax returns than at the same time last year, while salaries are increasing.

The problem gets worrisome when you notice that headcounts are flat to down. Or, are these the signs of a new paradigm?

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K-1 Chaos: IRS Throws Rocks at Hornet’s Nest

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Don’t get stung. Here’s how.
“It’s the taxpayer and preparer that get stung.”
By CPA Trendlines
CPA Trendlines Academy
Burnett

 

Bradley Burnett doesn’t start his 2025 Form 1065 program with a code section. He starts with a warning.

“Throwing rocks at a hornet’s nest,” says Burnett, JD, LLM, is what the IRS is doing to tax preparers. And then he delivers the line that drives the room quiet: “IRS has the bug spray, not us.”

2025 Forms 1065 and K-1s: IRS Throws Rocks at Hornet’s Nest with Bradley Burnett, J.D., LL.M
Full webinar on demand (any time, any device): Learn more | Buy now

The metaphor isn’t about audits. It’s about penalties. The practical risk of partnership returns has less to do with aggressive positions and more to do with incomplete disclosures, mismatched coding and mechanical errors. The danger is not interpretation. It’s the process.

“If the preparer does not do everything that IRS asks us to do,” Burnett warns, “it’s the taxpayer and preparer that get stung.”

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